


00:00:00:00:00:00

by izayoi_no_mikoto



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Presumed Dead, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-19 23:45:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15521361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izayoi_no_mikoto/pseuds/izayoi_no_mikoto
Summary: Gojyo meets Cho Gonou, and his timer keeps ticking.





	00:00:00:00:00:00

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts).



> Contains spoilers for Hakkai and Gojyo backstory.

There are a lot of things that Gojyo has wiped from his memory.

A lot of nights spent with a lot of women.  The poker tables that got upturned and the fists that started flying because Gojyo was too slick with the cards and too quick to wag a braggadocious tongue.  The stark, brittle smile that Jien would give him, the one that was inevitably followed by the creaking of mattress springs in the next room.

And then there are the things that are just... gone.  Gojyo didn't erase them; they vanished of their own volition, disappeared into some part of his mind that exists fathoms deeper than conscious memory.  They're things he must have known at some point, things he knows must be buried in his memory somewhere, but they're beyond reach, beyond recovery.  Things like Jien leaving the bedroom after the mattress springs fell silent.  His mother, happy.  The timers on their arms.

They must have had timers--everyone does--but Gojyo can't remember them.  It's not that he doesn't remember how much time was left on them, or whether they'd zeroed out, or what color they were; it's that he can't remember their timers even _existing_.  In his memory, when Jien reaches out to hold him or his mother raises the axe over her head, the insides of their forearms are bare, not even the smallest speck or line to mar the stretch of blank, empty skin.

He can't remember.  But maybe it's better, to not remember.

* * *

Gojyo's timer is a pale blue, gentle and unwavering, ticking down inexorably.  There are times when he wakes up in the morning and is surprised to find it there; there are times when he wakes up in the afternoon and is surprised it hasn't turned red.  Some people keep close track, counting off the years and hours and seconds, but Gojyo doesn't.  It's easier to focus on finding a girl for the night, a girl who doesn't mind that his timer is still blue and counting down--maybe a girl whose timer is red or black, or maybe a girl who, like him, knows it's only a matter of time.

Every once in a while, he misjudges a girl, and as soon as she sees his arm she pulls away, scandalized.  "But there's someone waiting for you!" she says--and it's almost always that exact line, or at least a close relation--and she always wears the exact same expression, shocked and yet, still, a little bit horny.

Gojyo's goal is to make the horny win out.  "Well, whoever it is, they're not here," he purrs, "but you are," and that's usually enough for her to get with the game.  Sometimes it isn't, but, well, Gojyo's not interested in that type, anyway.

The next morning, he always wakes up in a pile of sweaty, stained, rumpled sheets, alone and cold, and when he rakes his hair back he catches sight of the inside of his arm, and the timer is still there, counting down.  Counting.  Counting.

* * *

He's just been shot down by this blonde bombshell of a girl--fantastic rack, legs for days, sleek hair just begging to be tousled and tugged, and gorgeous blue eyes that go icy the moment she catches a glimpse of his timer--and he decides it's time to call it a night.  He's made a killing at the poker table, and the formerly good-natured insults have gained a bit of an edge, and the girl who shot him down is busy twittering over his hair and eyes, and he's had enough; his mood has soured, and he knows when it's time to call it quits.  So he chugs the rest of his beer, hollers to the barkeep to put it on his tab, flips the bird to the whinging losers, and heads out the door.

It's pouring rain, so he hustles--down the dingy backstreet alleys populated by sketchy bars and brothels, down to where the streets are abandoned and the neighborhood is merely run-down rather than seedy and suspicious.  Aside from the incessant hiss of rainfall, it's quiet and still in the darkness, and the streets are illuminated by nothing but faint, watery moonlight.  As he walks, Gojyo wallows in existential ennui, and he's so inside his own head that he almost doesn't spot the lump sprawled off the side of the road.

His eyes skim over it at first.  Then his brain catches up, and he stops, squinting as he peers through the rain and darkness.

It's moving.

Gojyo's eyes go wide.  It's a person.  A _living_ person.

 _What the fuck_ , Gojyo thinks.  He knows what passed-out drunkards look like, and this isn't it.  This is something else entirely.  _Don't get involved,_ Gojyo's wiser self says.  _Just move along._

Gojyo has never been good at listening to his better judgment.

Instead of leaving well enough enough, like anyone with two brain cells would, Gojyo saunters over and nudges the poor sucker with the toe of his shoe.  "Hey, you alive down there?"

He hears a faint groan, and then the man lifts his head and fixes Gojyo with a hazy emerald-green gaze that begs for mercy.

Those eyes pin Gojyo to the spot.  He stands there stupidly, his throat suddenly dry.  By some instinct, his bare arm turns outward, exposing his inner forearm.  Gojyo closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and glances down.

His timer is still pale blue, ghostly in the night, counting down.  The number is small--shit, when did it get so small?--but it isn't zero.

Gojyo exhales, a bit shakily.  Okay, so this guy has nothing to do with him.  He should mind his own business, go home, forget about everything.  That's what he _should_ do, but he can't convince his feet to turn around and walk away.

The man lets out a faint, pained sound, like a muffled moan, and Gojyo actually _looks_ at him.

The guy's slumped on the ground, face-down, as though he's lost the strength to even crawl.  He's shaking--tiny, tremulous shivers that definitely are not from the wet and chill.  His clothes are plastered to his slender body by more than just rain.  The silver cuffs in his ear gleam dully in the dimness.  His eyes, glazed and glassy, no longer focus on anything.  The ground beneath him is a dark pool, and equally dark stains drag out behind him, murky splatters amidst the rain puddles.  He has one hand pressed to his stomach, and that--that is definitely intestine.  The guy's been practically disemboweled.

Gojyo has seen some gnarly shit in his time, but this makes even him feel a little bit queasy.  _Walk away_ , the rational part of his mind insists, commands, screams.  _This isn't your business.  Walk away._

This isn't fate.  Not all dramatic meetings mean something.  Gojyo's timer is still counting down; this guy's a nobody.  Gojyo could walk away, and the dude would croak it and no one would be any the wiser.

Gojyo closes his eyes and curses whatever fickle god saw it fit to bless him with some misbegotten sliver of a conscience.  Or maybe it's just his perverse way of saying _fuck you_ to the universe, because this guy looks like he wishes he were dead, and Gojyo's always been a contrarian son of a bitch.  "Hey, man," Gojyo says, pulling his jacket down from where he has it slung over his shoulder.  "You look like you could use some help."

The man looks up at him with a gaze that swims in the air.  Gojyo crouches down.  "Sorry, but this is gonna hurt," he says, and he shoves his jacket beneath the man's eviscerated stomach, grimacing at the fleshy give of exposed innards, and rolls him over onto his back with one big heave.

The man lets out an agonized noise, wet and choked.  "Yeah, well, I'm not having fun here, either," Gojyo grumbles.  He _liked_ this jacket, too.  He pushes the guts back into the man's abdomen, packing down as hard as he dares with his ruined jacket, then grabs the man's hand and places it over the impromptu bandage.  "Press down as hard as you can," he says.  The man's hand twitches.  "...Right, then.  Well, at least try not to die."

And then, regretting every life choice that brought him to this point, Gojyo slides his hands under the limp body, hoists him up, and drags him home.

* * *

The man's timer is zeroed out and a shadowy, faded black.

Gojyo isn't looking for it--even he isn't that rude--but he has to strip the guy's mangled shirt off to deal with the mess that had once been an abdomen, so he gets a gander anyway.  It's a row of identical zeroes, small and neat, running along the tendons that stand out starkly at the man's wrist.

Gojyo's own timer is still ticking, so it's not like he had any expectations anyway, but it does something funny to his gut anyway.  He wonders if the man's gruesome injury happened at the same time that his timer went black.

He wonders if it would have been kinder to just let the man die.

Once all the dirty work is done with and it looks like the guy might survive the night after all, Gojyo crashes on the couch with a spare blanket and sleeps until mid-afternoon.  Nothing's changed by the time he wakes up, and he spends a few hours sitting backwards on his chair, staring at the frail, pale man in his bed and occasionally flicking cigarette ashes into his empty beer can.  There's really no point in wondering about the man's timer; he's not in any shape to be answering questions anytime soon.  Eventually, Gojyo dumps his last cigarette butt into the beer can, grabs a jacket, and heads out the door to spend a few hours gambling.  Him playing nursemaid isn't going to help any, and he has to pay the doctor's bills somehow.

* * *

"You can't smoke," the doctor says.

Gojyo stares.  "You gotta be shitting me," he says.

The doctor shakes his head.  "No smoking," he orders.  "He's in very delicate condition.  He needs to be able to rest and regain his strength and heal properly, and cigarettes don't exactly help the healing process.  So that means no smoking."

Gojyo keeps staring.  "He's in a fucking coma," he says blankly.  "A bit of cigarette smoke isn't going to wake him up."

"No, but a bit of cigarette smoke might make sure he _doesn't_ wake up," the doctor replies, shooting a pointed, nasty glare at unlit cigarette in Gojyo's hand.

Gojyo takes the hint.  "Fine," he grouses, putting his hands up in surrender.  "No smoking.  Got it."  He grudgingly shoves the cigarette back into the half-empty pack, muttering under his breath all the while.

The doctor resumes his checkup of the half-dead man in Gojyo's bed.  Really, half-dead is a step up.  A couple of days ago, the guy had been more like three-quarters dead.  Maybe seven-eighths.  "It's healing up about as well as can be expected," the doctor reports, gingerly poking at the stitched-up stomach gash.  He glances up at Gojyo, wearing a shrewd expression.  "And you're _sure_ you don't know how this happened?"

Gojyo scowls.  He knows he's not exactly a respectable, upstanding citizen, but this sort of butchery goes beyond even his pay grade.  "I told you, I just found him lying in the gutter on my way home.  I don't even know the guy."

The doctor raises one eyebrow.  "It's the rare individual who goes out of their way to save a total stranger."

"Yeah, well, I guess I'm just your regular Good fucking Samaritan," Gojyo snaps.  _I have no idea why I saved him_ , he doesn't say.

The doctor's expression is irked, but at least he stops arguing.  He applies some sort of poultice to the still-gruesome wound, dabbing it on gently around the stitches, then applies a fresh bandage.  "Well, I wasn't sure at first, but the odds are good that your stray dog here will pull through.  No signs of infection, which is near miraculous.  Unless something takes a turn for the worse, he'll probably wake up in a few days.  But he'll still be weak, so don't let him run around.  Strict bed rest for a month, you understand?"

"Bed rest for a month," Gojyo parrots dutifully.  "Got it."

The doctor caps his small container of poultice and places it on the table, next to Gojyo's cigarettes.  "Apply that once a day.  Not much, just a thin layer.  It will help accelerate the healing process."

"Okay."

"Let me know if his condition worsens.  Otherwise, I'll come back in a week or two to see if he's healed up enough to take the stitches out."

"Sure."

" _No smoking_."

"I got it already."

The doctor packs up his kit, and Gojyo shells out more cash than he'd like to part with.  The doctor pockets his pay only too happily, then adds, almost as an afterthought, "Oh, if you can, you should probably be there when he wakes up.  He'll likely be disoriented and afraid, so he could use someone who could be there to calm him down and explain what happened."

"Yeah, sure, I can do that."  It's not a bad idea, in theory.  To be honest, though, the mere idea of this guy being _scared_ is something Gojyo can't imagine--after all, even when he'd been bleeding his guts out into the dirt, there had been no fear in his eyes, nothing but pain and resignation.

He might have even been smiling, though Gojyo still isn't sure.

Gojyo sees the doctor out, then returns to the bed that, for the first time, has another man in it.  Not that he hasn't had a tumble or two with a guy before, but never in his own bed.  And yet now there's a total stranger there, sleeping there like that's where he belongs.  He's got a stitched-up stomach and gauze patches over his cheek and eye, and there remain streaks of blood dried into his hair, and he's in a coma.  He still looks like he's supposed to be there.

There's some sort of cosmic joke here, something about the universe's insistence that anyone who belongs in Gojyo's bed should be as fucked-up as him, but he's too worn-down and worn-out to laugh.  Instead he leans against the wall, his arms crossed, and stares at the man.  His fingers itch for a cigarette.

He does not light up a cigarette.  Instead, he fetches a rag, dampens it at the sink, and rubs the bloodstains out of the man's hair, strand by painstaking strand.

* * *

"Sorry, man, but I've got to wonder what the hell happened to you."

Gojyo has taken to talking aloud.  He's following the doctor's orders, staying home to make sure the man won't be alone whenever he finally wakes up, and the enforced idleness is driving him stir-crazy.  The lack of cigarettes doesn't help, either.  So to distract himself, he talks to the man who still lies unconscious in his bed.

"You must have royally pissed someone off," Gojyo continues, shuffling a deck of cards aimlessly.  "I mean, there had to be some real shit going down if someone decided to slice you up and dig your guts out."

The man, of course, doesn't reply.

Gojyo occupies himself for the next few minutes with a game of solitaire.  He wins, gathers the cards up, shuffles again.  "And I don't mean to be rude or anything, but your timer, too.  Gotta admit to being curious about that.  You don't see many people our age with a black timer."  He deals himself another round.  " _Are_ you my age?  Hell, who knows.  I'm shit at guessing ages."

The man, as ever, stays silent.  Gojyo actually looks over to make sure the guy's still breathing.  He is.

"Still, it must have been nice while it lasted.  They always say it is."  Gojyo starts another game of solitaire, picks up an ace and flicks it across the table to start the stack.  "Not that I know a whole lot of people who've actually zeroed out.  But, you know.  People.  That's what they say."

There's no point in talking.  The man's still unconscious.  Gojyo's heard that someone in a coma can still hear other people speaking to them, but he isn't counting on it; he doesn't believe in optimistic shit like that.  He keeps talking anyway.

"I gotta admit, I kind of wonder if the timer has anything to do with all this."  He waves a hand lazily, a vague indication of the man's less than stellar physical condition.  "If you were trying to get yourself killed, then, uh, sorry to ruin your plans, I guess?  But if you're going to off yourself, there are less messy ways to do it.  Try one of those next time."  He builds himself a stack of hearts.  Nine, ten, jack.  "Although I'd appreciate it if you didn't," he adds, his voice quiet.  "Just, you know.  A lot of gambling money went into saving your ass."  Queen.  King.  Gojyo swallows.  "And I've seen enough shit in my life as is."

Gojyo talks as though what he says is somehow meaningful.  He talks as though someone is listening.  He talks to the man lying unconscious in his bed, because despite all the questions and thoughts in his head, he knows he won't voice any of them once the man is awake to hear.

* * *

 "Well," a voice says, "Hell is unexpectedly plebeian."

The voice is thin and hoarse, barely more than a breath.   Gojyo sits up jerkily and looks over at the bed.  The man is still lying down, but his unbandaged eye is open wide.

Gojyo abandons his game of solitaire.  He gets up, approaches the bed, and leans over until his dangling bangs threaten to brush the man's face.  "Sorry it's too plebeian for you," he says.

The man blinks, as though nonplussed.  As Gojyo expected, there isn't a shred of fear or anxiety in his expression.  If anything, he only seems baffled.  Then again, the fact that he's alive must be quite the shocker.  "Oh," he says.

Gojyo pulls back and turns for the table, where his half-empty pack of cigarettes still sits.  His lungs are too empty.  "I'm gonna smoke now.  The doc said I shouldn't smoke while you were, you know, in a coma.  Well, you're awake now, so I'm smoking."

"Oh," the man repeats, still sounding vaguely surprised.  "Yes, of course, go ahead."

Gojyo taps a cigarette out of the pack, lights it, inhales.  Lets out a lungful of smoke in a relieved sigh.  It helps, but it doesn't help as much as he'd thought it would.

"So I'm not dead," the man says.  "I'm guessing I have you to thank for that."

"Yeah, about that," Gojyo replies.  "Sorry.  That this isn't Hell, I mean."  He pauses, puffs on his cigarette.  Debates whether he should ask.  Decides.  "Did you want to die?"

There's a long, long silence.  "No, I think this was for the best," the man says at last.  It's almost an answer to Gojyo's question.  Almost.  "Thank you."

Gojyo turns back around.  The man has struggled up into a sitting position, and now he's wincing slightly, one hand pressed against his stomach.  Gojyo watches him stolidly for a moment, then pours two cups of coffee and hands one over.  The man accepts it with shaking hands and a pleasant smile that reveals nothing.

"You were out for about a week," Gojyo says.  "I dragged you home and fixed you up.  It mostly involved me shoving your intestines back in, but it looks like it worked out okay.  The doc said you're on strict bed rest for a month, until you're fully healed.  Looks like you're stuck here for a while."  He offers a hint of a smirk.  "This is the first and last time I'm bringing a guy to my bed, by the way.  Don't count on it happening again."

For a long moment, the man remains silent.  He's wearing a strange little smile, not quite mirthful, not quite rueful.  "Of course," he says.

"I'm Gojyo, by the way."  Gojyo taps a bit of ash from his cigarette.  "Thought I might as well introduce myself, since it looks like we'll be keeping company for a while longer."

"Gojyo-san."  The man can't bow, not with his still-raw injury, but he tries anyway.  He succeeds in inclining his head and sort of hunching his shoulders a bit.  "I'll be in your care."  Perfectly formal speech, a set phrase demanded and constrained by social obligation.  When he straightens, he wears a perfectly placid expression, a vague, politely interested smile that is nothing but a culturally accepted façade.

He does not give his name, and Gojyo does not ask.

* * *

With few exceptions, the man is confined to Gojyo's bed.  In line with the doctor's recommendation, Gojyo makes rice porridge, something that will go down easy and won't place too much stress on the man's abused digestive tract.  Gojyo keeps up a ready supply of coffee and tea.  Gojyo does the laundry and helps the man dress when he hears a stifled hiss of discomfort.  Gojyo provides a supportive shoulder to the bathroom and back (though he gives the man his privacy for the actual deed).  Gojyo procures newspapers and books and--something that proves to be a dismaying mistake--a deck of cards.

 _What the hell_ , Gojyo thinks.  "I guess I don't need to go easy on you after all," he says.

He wasn't actually going easy to begin with, but a guy's got to defend his pride.

The man smiles.  "My apologies," he says.  He isn't at all sorry, isn't even trying to pretend he is.

Gojyo grumbles under his breath and gathers up the cards.  He thinks of saying something-- _are you a pro, are you cheating, who **are** you--_ but to be honest, he wouldn't know where to start, and he's not sure it would be worth it anyway, so he keeps his damn mouth shut.

His failure to pry does not go unnoticed.  "You aren't asking," the man says abruptly.  "About me."

Gojyo freezes, cards half-collected, and then he looks up.  "I don't really care," he says gruffly.  It's an utter lie.  He cares.  He's curious.  He wants to know, is _desperate_ to know.  But he isn't desperate enough to risk asking, because as curious as he is, as much as he wants to ask, he's even more afraid of what he might hear.

Gojyo might not be the smartest guy around, but he's no fool.  A man doesn't get disemboweled for nothing; no genuine smile leaves eyes that cold.  This guy is bad news, and Gojyo knows what kind of shit can happen when you get in too deep.

If he were smart, Gojyo would wash his hands of this entire mess.  But, well, even if he isn't a total fool, Gojyo isn't the smartest guy around.

"I know I'm a burden on you," the man continues.  "Is it really okay for me to stay here with you?"

Gojyo straightens the pile of cards into a proper deck and begins shuffling.  "You got somewhere else to go?"

"No," the man admits.

Gojyo deals.  They're playing five-card draw, and his opening hand is quite promising--two kings.  He dumps the rest and pulls another king and a pair of queens, and feels quite smug about it.  He's got a wallop of a full house, and his opponent isn't going to know what hit him.

"But there is one thing that I'm afraid I left unfinished," the man says, surveying his own cards.

"Oh?" Gojyo says, half question, half invitation to continue.

The man discards one card and considers its replacement.  "Hmm," he says.  "What do you have?"

They're not playing for money, so there's no betting.  Gojyo just shows his cards, smirking.  "Full house," he gloats.  "Read 'em and weep."

"Oh, I'm sorry," the man says, and lays his hand flat.  "Straight flush."  He's got the seven through jack of spades.

"What the _hell_!"  Gojyo throws his cards in exasperation and pounds the tabletop instead.  "You realize that this is how I make a living, right?  How the hell are you so good at this?!"

The man chuckles.  "For some reason, I've always been good at this sort of thing," he says modestly.

Gojyo never would have expected this meek, bookish man to make him look like a rank amateur at poker.  He's afraid to find out what other facets are lying hidden beneath the surface, lurking unacknowledged and unspoken and unspeakable.

* * *

The doctor makes his return visit.  "Well, you're looking a far sight better than the last time I saw you," he says, looking the man up and down.

The man does look better; his stomach wound is no longer oozing, and he's shed the bandages on his face, and he's even put a bit of meat on his bones.  He offers what Gojyo has by now learned is his trademark smile, bright and meaningless.  "I understand my recovery is due to your fine work," the man says.  "Thank you."

The doctor peels off the bandage.  "Not so fine that you won't have a scar," he says absently, examining the wound.  "You'll have a nasty reminder for the rest of your life, I'm afraid."

 _He's already got a nasty reminder for the rest of his life_ , Gojyo thinks, but the man has his arms lowered, tucked in close to his sides, and the dead timer is hidden out of sight.  Gojyo keeps his mouth shut.

"Besides, I didn't do as much as your friend here," the doctor continues, jerking his head toward Gojyo.  "He's the one who put your insides back where they belonged.  You're lucky he found you."

"I agree," the man replies pleasantly.  "I had rather thought I was going to die in the street."

The doctor eyes him, obviously uneasy.  In the end, though, he doesn't ask.  "You've healed about as well as could be hoped for," he says, going into his kit.  "I'm going to remove the stitches.  It might pinch and tug a little, but it shouldn't hurt too badly."

"Rest assured, Doctor, even if it does hurt, I am quite certain that I've felt worse pain," the man says.

The doctor stares at him.  Gojyo does, too; he's not sure if it's supposed to be a joke. 

"All right, then," the doctor says, pulling out tweezers and tiny, fine-nosed scissors from his kit.  "Let me know if you want to take a break."

The doctor begins removing the stitches, one by one--grasp the tail end of the thread in the tweezers, snip one stitch, tug the thread free.  He goes stitch by stitch, down the line, careful, precise, methodical.  His patient sits there with quiet forbearance, his eyes fluttering shut now and again with the occasional stubborn stitch, but he never cringes, never makes a noise.  When the last stitch is out, his wound looks even more lurid than before, but his expression remains scarily composed.

The doctor inspects his work with a critical eye, then nods in satisfaction.  "Looking good," he says.  He wipes his tweezers and scissors clean before returning them to his kit.  "Keep applying the medicine.  It should help with the scarring, at least a little bit."

"Thank you, Doctor."

"You can get up now, but I still advise against any strenuous activity.  You need to start exercising a bit, but nothing more than light walking for the next few weeks.  You're still healing, and we don't want to undo all our hard work because you decided to get ahead of yourself."

"Of course."

The doctor glances Gojyo's way.  "Could you give us a moment, please?  I'd like to ask him a couple of questions _without_ an audience.  Doctor-patient confidentiality, you know."

 _I'm the one paying the bills,_ Gojyo thinks.  _I'm the one who found him_ , he thinks.  _I'm the one who saved his life_ , he thinks.

"No problem," he says, and makes to stand.

"That's quite all right," the man says, his smile never wavering.  "I don't mind having Gojyo-san here."

The doctor fixes Gojyo with a supremely unimpressed look, as though _Gojyo_ is somehow at fault here.  Gojyo just shrugs helplessly.

"All right, then," the doctor says with a sigh, and he rounds on his patient once again.  "I'm sorry to touch on a delicate topic, but I am concerned about potential effects on your health.  Does this injury have anything to do with your timer?"

Gojyo almost swallows his tongue.

The man, to his credit, only barely flinches.  Gojyo almost doesn't see it at all.  "Does it matter?" he asks, his tone polite as always.

"That kind of loss is traumatic," the doctor says.  "If this is--"

"I did not do it to myself, if that is your question," the man says.

Gojyo exhales.

The doctor stares, his gaze sharp and challenging.  The man stares back, his expression unmoving and unmoved.  The doctor raises his eyebrows.

"And I don't intend to do anything like this to myself, either," the man adds.

The doctor remains silent, as though assessing the truthfulness of these statements.  "Very good," he says at last.  "Please do take care of yourself.  Remember, just because the stitches are out doesn't mean you're fully healed.  Walk a bit, but do _not_ overexert yourself.  Drink plenty of fluids.  Make sure you eat enough."  He shoots a dirty look at Gojyo.  "And you, at least _try_ not to smoke too much around him."

Gojyo swallows his curses and puts out his cigarette.  The man smiles.

* * *

Gradually, the man transforms himself from an invalid to something of a guest.

At first, he's still physically weak; he can't walk without a helping hand or some kind of crutch, can't stand for extended periods of time without sweat beading on his forehead.  But bit by bit, he regains his strength, and with it the capacity for self-maintenance.

He starts brewing tea and coffee, and will make an extra cup when he predicts (with startling accuracy) when Gojyo wants a drink of his own.  He doesn't do much in the way of cleaning, because he still can't manage anything that requires core strength or any crouching over, but he starts wiping the table after meals, rinsing the kitchen sink, washing the dishes.  He has a way with the dishes, too, a very _particular_ way--"Gojyo-san, do you not own a drying rack?" he asks one evening, his mild tone somehow conveying an intense disapproval, and when Gojyo actually goes and _buys_ one for him the next day, he sets it up on the countertop with an exacting precision that, his behavior impresses upon Gojyo, is not to be adjusted or questioned.

He procures an ashtray that Gojyo had been convinced he'd lost years before.  "You really should use an ashtray, Gojyo-san," he says blandly as he sets it on the table, "it's much more difficult to recycle beer cans if they have ashes in them," which is how Gojyo discovers that his beer cans have started being recycled.  So Gojyo uses the ashtray, because it's right there, why not, and it is somehow constantly pristine, as though his guest--who is rapidly becoming a _guest_ now, even if he remains something of an invalid--is cleaning it every time Gojyo looks away for more than three seconds.

He starts cooking, which is how Gojyo discovers that even his barebones kitchen is capable of producing really amazing food.  The first time he hands Gojyo a shopping list, Gojyo stares at it and says, "I don't even know what half of this shit _is_."  Hell, he can't even read all the Chinese characters.

"I'm sure you can handle it," the man says peaceably, and the next time Gojyo goes to the market, he squints at the list and searches the various stalls and tables for the handwritten signs that match, and he comes back with bags of unknown spices, dried roots, bizarre-smelling fruits, strangely colorful rice, and animal parts he isn't sure are edible.  His guest surveys the lot of it with a pleased expression and says, "Thank you, Gojyo-san," which shouldn't make Gojyo want to preen but does, just a little, and the man cooks dinner that night, transforming the curious medley of ingredients into a full-fledged meal that's better than anything Gojyo has had in… years, probably.  Maybe his entire life.

There's only one concession he allows to his still-healing injury, and Gojyo is pretty sure he allows it only because it's the one thing Gojyo refuses to budge on.  "Really, Gojyo-san, I can't keep monopolizing your bed," he says matter-of-factly.  "I appreciate your consideration, but I think I'm well enough that I can sleep on the couch now."

The couch is where Gojyo has been sleeping for the past few weeks, at first because he didn't want to risk tearing the poor guy's stitches open with one poorly-timed sleepy kick or flail, and then because he got used to it and his guest was still healing, and now because there's something strangely comforting about waking up in the morning to find a cup of freshly brewed, still-hot coffee on the table in front of him and a familiar face looking up from the newspaper to say, "Good morning, Gojyo-san."

The man is a guest now, but not _too_ much of a guest.  Gojyo reminds him to take it easy, to mind his still-healing injury, to _just sleep in the bed, dude, you need it more than I do_.  The man is a patient first and foremost, not a guest.  After all, a guest eventually wears out his welcome.  A guest eventually leaves.

* * *

"To be honest, I rather wanted to go to Hell," the man says.  He's made coffee and rice crackers, and he speaks as though he isn't saying something horrifying and tragic.  "I'd lost something quite precious, you see."

Gojyo is so busy pondering the novelty of homemade rice crackers that it takes him a moment to understand the gravity of the conversation they're having.  When he finally does, he looks up, chewing on the man's words.  _Something precious_ , he'd said, and there's only one thing that could be.  "You mean this?" Gojyo asks, lifting one arm and twisting his wrist a few times.  It's the universal gesture to indicate a timer.

"Well, that's half of it," the man allows.

 _Half of it?_   "What's the other half?" Gojyo demands.

"She was also my sister," the man replies.

Gojyo stares.  The man sips nonchalantly at his tea.  The silence extends.

"Are you disgusted?" the man asks at last.

Gojyo remembers Jien, and his mother, and the way there had only been misery.  He thinks of how he can't remember their timers, and of the line of black zeroes on the man's wrist.  "Nah.  I guess these things happen sometimes," he says.  "And if your timers matched up, well, there's no arguing that."

"Most people wouldn't agree," the man replies, serene.  He doesn't sound like a man who's talking about his dead sister.  Lover.  Whatever she was.  "We grew up in separate orphanages, but I never forgot her."  His eyes drop.  He's wearing long sleeves--he usually does--but he stares at his inner forearm anyway, as though he can see his timer straight through the fabric.  Hell, for all Gojyo knows, maybe he can.

"What's it like?" Gojyo asks.  "Zeroing out."

The man shrugs.  "I don't know," he says.  "We were twins.  I don't remember ever having anything but zeroes."  He looks at Gojyo with something that looks very much like genuine curiosity.  Gojyo's getting better at reading those expressions, but he still isn't sure, sometimes, what's real and what's a mask.  "What is it like to have a timer that's counting down?"

Gojyo turns his own arm, rolling it so the timer faces down and out of sight.  He's not wearing a shirt right now, because hell, it's his own house, he can wear or not wear whatever the fuck he wants, and fuck hiding his timer, too, he doesn't care.  But he knows his timer is getting low, and he doesn't want to look at it and see it counting down, not when this man with a dead, zeroed-out timer is sitting at his table, living in his house, cooking his food and sleeping in his bed.  "Dunno," he says, shrugging awkwardly.  "It is what it is, I guess.  Never thought too much about it."

"I never thought too much about it, either, but that was because I always knew," the man says, almost pensively.  "I never had to wonder.  I never had to wait."  His eyes go faraway, and Gojyo knows that he's thinking about a dead woman, about a past that's not distant enough.  Then he shakes his head as though shaking off a ghost.  "Do you ever think about what kind of person it might be?" he asks.

Gojyo shrugs again.  "Never thought to much about it," he repeats.  "No guarantee it'll actually hit zero, you know?  Plenty of people snuff it early.  If I zero out, I zero out.  No point thinking about it until then."

The man hums wordlessly, a vague sound of acknowledgment.  He's quiet for a long moment, but it's the kind of pregnant silence that hints at more to come.  Gojyo waits for it.

"I think about my timer more now that she's dead than I ever did when she was alive," the man says at last, his tone too prosaic for such blunt words.  "I never wondered what it was for, or what it meant.  As far as I was concerned, it meant that she and I were connected, and that was enough.  But now she's gone, and I wonder:  Does it mean that I'll be alone for the rest of my life?  Does it mean that no one else is waiting for me?  Does it mean that everything about my life that was ever meaningful has died with her?"

Gojyo winces.  "Shit, man, that's too deep for me.  The monks and woo-woos can say whatever they want, but it's not like we actually know what any of it means, you know?"

The man looks at him, his gaze unreadable.  "What do you think the timer means, Gojyo-san?"

Gojyo gropes for his pack of cigarettes.  _I used to think it meant I was waiting for someone_ , he thinks, tapping out a cigarette and bringing it to his lips.  _I thought it meant there was someone out there who would drag me out of this fucked-up life._ He picks up his lighter, flicks it open with a metallic click, holds up the flickering flame until the end of his cigarette glows.  _But then I found you in the gutter, and my timer didn't zero out._

Gojyo inhales acrid cynicism, exhales smoky hopelessness.  "I don't know, man," he says.  "Sometimes I'm not sure it means anything at all."

* * *

"Gojyo-san, may I have a moment of your time?"

Gojyo looks up and knows, _knows_ , that it's over.

His guest wears that same damned smile, the kind that closes his eyes to hide what's really in there.  He clasps his hands behind his back.  Gojyo wants to know what he's hiding.

"You're going," Gojyo says.  His voice is dead flat; it isn't a question, because he already knows the answer.

Still, the man just smiles.  "Yes," he says simply.  "But before I leave, there's something I wanted to discuss with you."

Gojyo puts down the newspaper he'd been half-heartedly reading and gestures to the chair opposite him.  The man takes a seat and clasps his hands before him, not quite praying.  "I've killed," the man says.

Gojyo just looks at him.  _When I found you, your guts were spilling out of your stomach,_ he thinks.   _I've seen the way you smile.  Somehow, the fact that you killed someone doesn't surprise me._   But he doesn't say any of this.  He just holds his tongue and waits.

"I've killed many people," the man says.  "I committed a great crime, and I'll have to atone for it somehow, someday.  But before then, there's something I have to take care of.  And I can only do that because you saved me.  I'm grateful for that."

The man pauses and cocks his head to the side; his bangs drift with the movement, veiling one eye.  "Perhaps meeting you is my penitence," he muses.  "Your hair and eyes--they remind me of the blood I've spilled.  You stopped me from running away from my sins, because every time I saw you, I was forced to remember."  Then he smiles, an expression jarring in its kindness.  "Perhaps our meeting was meant to be."

Gojyo swallows.  He'd thought that, too, once upon a time.  That night, when he'd found a man bleeding his life out into the dirt and dust, he'd thought, just for a moment, _This is it.  This is the person I've been waiting to meet._   But even after that moment ended, his timer continued ticking down--continues to this day.

He's finally found someone who thinks like him, someone who sees the world with the same eyes as he does.  Someone who understands loss and tragedy, someone who has lived cruelty and sin.  Some part of him has always wanted to meet someone like that, has been waiting for it his whole life.  But in the end, it doesn't mean anything.

"I see," Gojyo says, because there's nothing else he can say.

The man nods his head in what might be a gesture of gratitude.  "Well, then, I'll be leaving now."  He rises from the table.

So that's it, then.  It's over.

Gojyo slowly exhales.  _Good_ , he tells himself, _good riddance_.  It was a stupid idea, taking in a guy who was clearly involved in some heavy shit.  It's about time Gojyo got his house back.  He'll send the man off, bring an end to their acquaintance, and forget that any of this ever happened.  He'll go back to his regular life of drinking and gambling and sex.  He might even accept that this man's appearance in his life was an aberration, mere happenstance.

This man's existence is only a speed bump, not a road to a different life.  Gojyo knows this.  One day, he might even be able to believe it.

"Hey," Gojyo says.

The man halts and looks back over his shoulder, wearing a quizzical expression.

"Your name," Gojyo says.  "I never got your name."

It's stupid.  It's meaningless.  It's pathetic.  Knowing the guy's name won't change anything.  Gojyo knows this, but he can't stop himself from asking.  _Just his name_ , he tells himself.  _That's all._   The man has his dead timer and his gruesome scar, but Gojyo won't have any nasty reminders that will stay with him for the rest of his life.   He'll have nothing but his newfound ashtray and his newfound appreciation for home cooking and his newfound realization that he'll never again bring anyone else to his bed because now he knows what it's like to find someone who looks like they belong there, and surely no one else can compare.  _Just his name_ , Gojyo thinks, and surely he's allowed that much?  A keepsake, a memento, a single memory he can hoard and cling to that no one else will know.  Something to remind him, even as his timer keeps counting down.

He really is a fool.

"My name?" the man asks.  He hesitates.  Then he says, "My name is--"

There's a knock on the door.

The man's face is a mask.  Gojyo pushes himself up out of his chair.  "Hold that thought," he says, and he goes and answers the door.

On the other side of the door is a hot piece of ass wearing a sour, arrogant expression and all the robes and trappings of a Buddhist monk.  Gojyo is good at identifying bad news, and this guy right here?  He's the shittiest piece of news Gojyo maybe has ever received.

"I'm looking for a man," the monk says.  "His name is Cho Gonou."

Gojyo's stomach drops, and his mouth goes dry.  _And this is why, this is why, this is why_ , Gojyo's mind chants.  This is why he shouldn't have gotten involved.  This is why he didn't ask questions.  This is why he'd told himself, time and time again, not to get too deep.

It's too late, he's balls-deep in this mess, but all he needs is plausible deniability, and fortunately, he's got that in spades.  Besides, he's a damn good bluffer; the only person with a better poker face than him is sitting at his kitchen table.  So even though this situation has bad news written all over it, Gojyo just leans against the doorjamb and offers the pissy monk a shit-eating grin.  "Sorry," he says, "never heard of the guy," and it's not even a fucking lie.

* * *

Things go south.  Of course things go south.  The monk has a gun and a pet monkey and apparently the Three fucking Aspects behind him, and Cho Gonou has too much of a martyr complex, and Gojyo has no excuses or explanations or defenses.  So things go south, and at the end of the day, all Gojyo can do is try to keep the pieces from falling apart completely.  "Get out of here!" he says.  "Take me with you," he says.  "Say a fucking sutra," he says.  He tries, he tries, in every way he can think of, he tries.

He tries, and he fails.

 _Someday I will have to atone for my sins_ , Cho Gonou said.  He was right.  That _s_ _omeday_ comes sooner than Gojyo had hoped.  It comes too soon, far too soon.

"Cho Gonou is dead," the monk says.

* * *

It doesn't really hit him until a few days later.

Dead.

Cho Gonou is dead.

When it hits, it hits like a sledgehammer, like a lightning bolt, like a knife in the gut.  Cho Gonou is dead, and Gojyo couldn't save him.  Cho Gonou is dead, and Gojyo's timer glows blue and keeps counting.  Cho Gonou is dead.

Gojyo floats through the next few days in a haze of sick, disgusted disbelief.  The worst part is, he can't even blame anyone.  He can't blame Cho Gonou for dying; if anything, it's miraculous he'd survived as long as he had.  He can't blame the monk for doing his job and bringing Cho Gonou to justice; it had been a great and terrible sin, one whose atonement required a great and terrible price.  He can't even blame himself, because fuck, he'd done everything he could, from the very first moment he'd seen those emerald eyes in the rain.

But it still feels wrong, wrong, _wrong_.  So he blames the only thing he can.

"You fucked up," he tells his timer, glaring balefully at it.  The words emerge an acidic, twisted snarl.  "You fucked this one up real good.  You got the wrong person.  Are you really telling me that there's someone _else_ out there?  Is there someone _else_ \--"

His voice breaks.  Squeezing his eyes shut, he drops his head, presses the heel of his palm against his forehead, clutches his bangs, does not cry.  "Is there someone else who's supposed to change my life more than him?" he asks, his voice a brittle whisper.  "Is there someone else I'm supposed to be waiting for?"

He opens his eyes.  His timer does not answer, but merely glows back at him, cold and cruel, and continues counting down.

* * *

Gojyo cuts back his drinking, cuts back his gambling, cuts his hair.  He cuts off his past and casts it away.

He still hits up the bars every now and again--it's not like he has any skills except gambling, and a man's gotta eat somehow--but he doesn't spend his every night there drowning in women and booze like he used to.  The barflies notice.  Every once in a while, he runs into someone he used to know--a drinking buddy, a poker partner, a girl he'd had a few romps with.  "I can't believe you cut your hair!" they say.  "I never see you anymore, Gojyo, did you settle down or something?  Zero out?"

Gojyo waves a dismissive hand.  "No way," he says with a laugh, and he doesn't explain himself.  He can't explain that his eyes are opened, that his life has changed course, that his timer is wrong; he can't, because he's still the same person, and nothing has changed, and timers are never wrong.  So instead he laughs it off and does not tell them about Cho Gonou, because none of them would understand.

* * *

He wakes up one morning, stretches, scratches his head, rubs the sleep out of his eyes, and freezes.

His timer is pale blue, counting down.  Five hours, thirty-seven minutes, twenty-nine seconds.  Twenty-eight.  Twenty-seven.

Gojyo stares at it, his eyes wide and his mind blank.  It doesn't seem possible, somehow.  _You fucked up_ , he thinks.  He doesn't know if it's directed at the universe, at his timer, at himself.

He gets up, gets dressed, smokes a cigarette, stubs it out in the ashtray.  He takes out the garbage, has a cup of coffee, washes the mug and sets it to dry on the rack just so.  He eats some leftover dumplings, cleans the kitchen, checks his stock of food.  He sits at his kitchen table, stares at the wall, shuffles and shuffles and shuffles a worn-out deck of cards that he doesn't play with anymore.

What would happen, he wonders, if he just stayed at home, refused to go out, let his timer hit zero without him?  Would someone show up at his door, a perfect coincidence with perfect timing?  Would his timer go red or black?  Would it keep going, turning negative, counting endlessly into the future as a symbol of his defiance?  Or would time itself rewind, history itself scroll back, until his timer reprogrammed and recalibrated itself to hit zero on that rainy night a lifetime ago?

His stomach growls.  The handful of leftover dumplings aren't enough to hold him over, and no man can survive on beer alone, not even Gojyo.  He stares blankly at his near-empty refrigerator, and then he steels himself, grabs some cash, and heads outside.

It's an obscenely nice day, the kind that shouldn't exist in a world where Cho Gonou is dead.  Gojyo shoves his hands into his pockets and skulks along, his shoulders hunched and his head lowered to avoid meeting anyone's eyes.  He goes to the market, but he has no shopping list, no instructions for ingredients he should buy, and so he picks willy-nilly, a whole chicken here, a durian there.  He does not look at his timer, but he can feel eyes on it--other people seeing, staring, wondering, judging.

Gojyo stops at a fruit stand and gazes blankly at the apples.  They're almost the exact same color as his hair.  He picks one up and inspects it, as though it has any answers.  In his peripheral vision he can see his timer, pale blue, but he can't make out the exact number, can't tell how long he has.  He doesn't dare to even try to see.  Instead he catches the attention of the young woman working the stall.  "I'll take this one," he says.

Beside him, someone speaks.  "A beautiful shade of red, don't you think?"

The voice is mild, amiable, too polite.  It makes Gojyo's heart skip a beat, crawls under his skin, echoes in his ears like it belongs there.  It sinks into the very marrow of his bones.  It's a familiar voice, painfully familiar, and one Gojyo thought he would never hear again.

Gojyo looks up into a pair of shockingly green eyes, and his timer hits zero.

He can feel it deep inside his arm, all the way down to the bones.  He can feel it tick over to zero, like a key turning the tumblers in a lock, like a puzzle piece snapping into place.  It doesn't make a sound, doesn't buzz or vibrate or click.  But even without looking, Gojyo knows.  And so he doesn't look down at his timer; instead, he looks up.  He stares with wide eyes, his mouth dry, his blood thrumming.  He's looking at a ghost.

"Cho Gonou," he whispers.

The man's smile shifts in some minute way, transforming into something rueful and amused and _real_.  "I'm afraid not," he says pleasantly.  "Cho Gonou is dead.  My name is Hakkai, now."

And he pulls back his sleeve, revealing part of his forearm.  Running along the tendon on the inside of his arm is a string of zeroes.  Their shape and position is the same, but they are no longer a flat, dead black; instead they glow an earthy, living green.

Running on instinct, or perhaps just shocked into action by his own disbelief, Gojyo reaches out for him.  He doesn't realize what he's doing until his fingers brush against the timer.  It doesn't feel like anything but skin; there are no raised scars, no heat, and Gojyo's touch doesn't change it, doesn't make it go dark or disintegrate into dust or reset and begin counting anew.  It simply remains, a zeroed-out timer that somehow, miraculously, still lives.

Gojyo looks down.  The timer on his own forearm is a matching line of zeroes, and it glows vivid green, the exact same color as Hakkai's eyes.

Gojyo looks up again.  Hakkai smiles at him, soft and gentle.  "I've been looking forward to meeting you," he says.  "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Gojyo."

**Author's Note:**

> To opalmatrix: Happy Parallels! I hope you enjoy reading this and that you have a wonderful exchange.


End file.
